The UK’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is to provide a £2.472 billion ($4.85 billion) budget to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) for 2007-08, a small increase on the current year.

A spokesman for the NDA said: “This is a good settlement,” adding that with the budget still significantly higher than in 2005, the value allowed it to “maintain the current higher level of spend.” The NDA has prioritised “the highest hazards at Sellafield and Dounreay” for the budget.

The NDA remains in discussion with government on the spending limits for the next three years, work is also progressing on an examination of the whole long-term funding and financing regime for nuclear decommissioning.

Dounreay clean-up contractor UKAEA welcomed the announcement, saying that the £150 million ($294 million), is an increase on this year’s funding level.

The funding level announced by the NDA means the site remains on target to complete the clean-out and demolition of the fast reactor experiment by 2033.

The news comes as the NDA confirmed the names of the new Site Licence Companies (SLCs) to carry out decommissioning and commercial operations across its twenty sites.

It is currently planned to have seven SLCs, each of which will be owned by a Parent Body Organisation (PBO) for the duration of a contract awarded by the NDA.

The SLCs are:

  • Sellafield Ltd: Sellafield, including Calder Hall; Windscale & Capenhurst
  • Magnox North Ltd: Chapelcross; Hunterston A; Trawsfynydd; Wylfa & Oldbury
  • Magnox South Ltd: Berkeley; Bradwell; Dungeness A; Hinkley Point A & Sizewell A
  • Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd: Dounreay site only
  • Research Sites Restoration Ltd: Harwell & Winfrith facilities
  • Low Level Waste Repository Site Licence Company Ltd (LLWR): The low level waste repository near Drigg in Cumbria
  • Springfields Fuels Ltd: Springfields plant near Preston, Lancashire.

A programme of competitions has already begun to choose the PBOs that will own the shares in the various SLCs. The competitions for the Low Level Waste Repository SLC and the Sellafield SLC are underway with the southern bundle of Magnox reactor sites due to begin later this year.


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